Stop being busy judging events and start to look and understand the lesson to be learned from what you are experiencing. Once the lesson is learned, the situation may happen again, but you will not experience it the same way. Why? Because once the lesson is learned, the experience changes.

It was once said that before an awakening, there is pain and suffering. But after awakening, there is pain but no longer suffering.

The body (the physical) experiences pain, but the mind experiences suffering. Once you learn to understand the mind, the ego and the reality in which we live, the body will still experience pain, but you will be free of the suffering created by the mind.

The pain we experience can last for only moments, but the suffering the mind generates can last for days, weeks, months… even years. The suffering is the idea and feeling attached to the moment the pain is experienced. The pain often ends quickly, but we carry the suffering in our mind for much longer.

This does not have to be the case. If you can learn to see yourself for what you really are… a perfect, non-physical being experiencing life within a physical shell, you can understand that the pain experience is over. It does not define who you are. We allow the pain to define us only when we associate our true being with the physical body. If we believe we are only the result of our past experiences, we feel as if we are “damaged goods” or something not worthy of love.

There is nothing further from the truth. We are all perfect. We are all made from the energy of the universe. We are all one, connected at a level that is infinite.

If you feel negative feelings like hate, anger, frustration or annoyance, it means that there is something within yourself that is unresolved. We are all capable of doing great things… but, as humans, we are also capable of doing horrible things. Great or horrible are labels we place on actions, but the action itself is simply an action. It is how our mind processes these actions, which labels them as great or horrible… it is the labels that crate the negative feelings.

In order to understand why you view things the way you do, you must learn to look deep within yourself and question your thoughts. Ask yourself “why do I feel this way?” and then listen for the true answer. If the answer is true, you will gain a better understanding as to why you see the world the way you do. This is the way we gain true knowledge… not through books or from other people telling us what is right or wrong, but by looking deep within our own unlimited knowledge of the universe and being honest with ourselves.

Do not judge yourself over your answer… simply understand why you feel the way you do. In time, once you understand your true feelings, those feelings will start to shift. You will not have to work on letting go of anger or hate you’ve held on to. It will naturally fade away.

The only way to remove darkness is to place it into the light. You don’t have to remove the darkness… the light is all it takes to naturally make the darkness fade.

Learn to place your negative thoughts into the light of consciousness and understanding and your darkness will disappear. It isn’t always easy to do. In many cases it requires you to relive painful memories. This can be very, very hard for some. But once you’ve gone through it you will see how much more peaceful you become. It takes far more energy to avoid feeling something your entire life than it does to feel it once and let it go. That anger and pain leaks out slowly into every other aspect of your life. Once you understand how much your life is impacted by hiding from this pain, you see that you are not hiding from it at all. You are simply allowing it to manifest in other areas of your life and relationships.

This pain is like a very heavy rock. You carry it wherever you go. It makes you tired and makes the journey of life so much more difficult to walk.

Let it go. Put down the rock you carry and your journey will become much lighter… but the only way you can learn to put down the rock of negative thinking is to look at things in an honest way and realize that you are carrying it in the first place.